Cellular communications systems typically provide interconnect and/or dispatch voice communication services. Interconnect voice communication services are those typically provided by most cellular carriers as circuit-switched communications. Dispatch communication services are commonly implemented as a push-to-talk (PTT) type of service, such as the dispatch call service marketed by Sprint Nextel Corporation under the trade name Direct Connect. PTT services have been implemented using the Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN™), which provides functionality for individual half-duplex transmissions to be sent to another party on the system without needing a connection to be already established. Other iDEN PTT services include Selective Dynamic Group Call (SDGC), Private Call (PC) and Dispatch to Desktop (D2D), etc.
Dispatch communications are based on dispatch regions or markets, which are large geographic areas serviced by a single provider. If a service provider has adjacent or overlapping markets they may be linked to provide contiguous service across urban areas. Inter-urban calls are dispatch calls that occur between two different dispatch markets—for example, a dispatch call between an iDEN user in New York and another iDEN user located in Los Angeles. Conversely, an intra-urban call is a dispatch call that occurs within a single dispatch market.
A problem arises on some networks for subscribers who are restricted from making inter-urban calls. Such subscribers may, for example, be restricted based on the selection of a service plan that does not include long-distance service. Under the current implementation of iDEN, for example, long-distance restricted subscribers are unable to make PTT calls to users that are on other PTT networks (i.e., High-performance PTT (HPPTT on CDMA) or other PTT applications (i.e., push-to-weather, push-to-sports, etc.) because iDEN networks, by design, treat all dispatch calls that get routed through the iDEN gateway (iGW) as calls from a different dispatch market, and are hence as inter-urban calls (i.e., long-distance dispatch calls). Thus, there is a need to enable dispatch callers who have restrictions on making long-distance dispatch calls to be able to make inter-urban dispatch calls, such as dispatch calls routed through the iDEN gateway.